First one and two-then there would be three, four,
five, as many as Buddy could count-then the whole herd would
be lying down.
Buddy loved the camp-fires. The cowboys would sit around the
one where his father and mother sat--mother with Dulcie in
her arms--and they would smoke and tell stories, until mother
told him it was time little boys were in bed. Buddy always
wanted to know what they said after he had climbed into the
big wagon where mother had made a bed, but he never found
out. He could remember lying there listening sometimes to the
niggers singing at their own campfire within call, Ezra
always singing the loudest,--just as a bull always could be
heard above the bellowing of the herd.
All his life, Ezra's singing and the monotonous bellowing of
a herd reminded Buddy of one mysteriously terrible time when
there weren't any rivers or any ponds or anything along the
trail, and they had to be careful of the water and save it,
and he and Dulcie were not asked to wash their faces. I think
that miracle helped to fix the incident indelibly in Buddy's
mind; that, and the bellowing of the cattle. It seemed a
month to Buddy, but as he grew older he learned that it was
three days they went without water.
The first day he did not remember especially, except that
mother had talked about clean aprons that night, and failed
to produce any.
Pages:
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36